PART SIX

You know the drill...disclaimer in part one

Note: any science in this part is not based in 
fact.  Most of it came from sci-fi novels.

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Part Six-Battle Plans

     "Thanks again, Helen," Catriona Ramsay said as 
Helen Calvert left the bakery.  Cat sighed and turned 
back to where she was working on decorating a cake for 
a special occasion.

     Helen had come to her that day tell her about 
one of the F.B.I. agents that was roaming around 
school because of that poor little boy that was 
found behind it.  Helen said that this man 
reminded her of Fox.  He'd had the same eyes, 
Helen remarked.

     That was all Helen could say though.  A guess 
based on a few second glimpse.  But it gave Cat hope.  
If she combined this idea of Helen's with Shannon's 
dream of a grown up Fox with a red haired woman named 
Dana from a few weeks ago, she just knew that something 
was about to happen.  Her witch's senses knew that soon 
she would see her little boy again.

     At that moment five kids came into the bakery, 
led by a tall, oak brown haired, green-eyed boy.  
"Hey, Gramma," Alec Ramsay called out to the bakery, 
devoid of customers but inhabited by Cat and one of 
her helpers, Bryn Harrison.

     The five walked behind the bakery counter and 
dropped their backpacks in a corner, their bodies 
following the bags down to rest on the floor.  "What 
are you doing here?" Cat asked, even though she already 
knew from what Helen said.  She'd decided not to tell 
anyone of this development from Helen, she felt things 
would come out in the open in their own time.

     "Remember all those kids they found in the 
woods?" Alec said, coming over to Cat's side to 
take a swipe at the frosting on the cake.  She 
gently slapped his hand away and Alec pouted.  
"They found another kid, so they sent us home 
so the cops and the feds could investigate."

     Cat looked up into her grandson's eyes, and 
then over to where Brian, Juliette, Robynne, and 
Molly were slumped on the floor.  "Bryn," Cat 
said.  Bryn looked up, her curly hair bobbing 
around her face.

     "Yeah?"

     "Why don't you take Brian and Juliette in 
the back and show them where the fresh cookies 
are," Cat said smoothly.

     Bryn walked over from her side of the counter 
to the door leading to the back room.  "C'mon guys," 
she said.  Juliette looked over at Brian.  They knew 
Gramma, Alec, Molly, and Robbie were going to talk 
Dragon business, and until her and Brian became full 
Dragons they wouldn't be included in these talks.  
They resignedly got up and followed Bryn into the 
back room.

     When they were out of sight Cat quickly wrapped 
up the cake and stuck it in the fridge.  She motioned 
the other three over to a table by the display window.  
They sat down and began their war conference.

     "Okay, do you have any idea who's doing this?" Cat 
asked them, more specifically directed at Molly who was 
pulling the leather bound book out of her backpack.

     Molly flipped open to a bookmarked page.  "Well, 
from what we can guess from what happened to Jenna 
it's a Cader-Ieran, one of the soul stealers."

     Alec looked over at his grandmother.  Her blue 
eyes glinted in the bakery light.  She looked much 
younger than her sixty-two years.  Her oak-brown hair, 
liberally streaked with grey, although still 
predominantly brown, was plaited and piled up on her 
head.  Her voice still held the Irish accent, and it 
didn't lose any of its intensity ever since her and her 
husband Jerome came over from Ireland in 1957.  Cat's 
face bore wrinkles from age and hardship, but ever since 
he was a little kid he could always remember her having 
a great beauty about her.  Now, Cat was in her element 
as protector of the innocent.

     "That's impossible," Cat said.  "Cader's don't 
run loose any more because they're a danger to humans.  
The ones that are in existence are isolated on an island 
off of Norway and kept under strict watch."

     "Like a prison?" Robynne asked.

     "More like a preserve," Cat said.  "It's not right 
to exterminate an entire species, so we isolated them, 
but permit them to breed, and feed them when they need 
to eat."

     "But they eat..." Alec began with a disgusted 
look on his face.  Cat had to bite back a smile as 
to how much Alec looked like Fox did when he was a 
little boy.  It was the very reason Alec had earned 
the middle name Fox.

     "Do they volunteer?" Molly asked, looking sick 
for the second time that day.

     "Actually they get fed criminals who've committed 
serious crimes.  They're not to discriminating about 
the souls they take.  I know it's rather unorthodox 
and unethical," Cat shrugged, "but these are criminals 
who can't be punished by any court of the ordinary 
world.  This way, we know they won't harm the world again."

     "Then how did it get here?" Alec said.

     "I wonder," Cat said, and leaned back in her 
chair.  "If a Cader escaped there'd be an alert and 
we'd have all heard about it."  Unless...she began 
to think.

     Alec's brow ruffled and it was clear he had an 
idea.  He looked over at Molly, but she didn't see 
him as she was staring down at the table looking 
slightly green and taking deep breaths.  The 
conversation from before had made her slightly sick 
once more.  "Hey, you okay?" he asked, putting an arm 
around her shoulder.

     "I'll be okay," she said, breathing heavily.

     Still keeping an arm around her Alec opened the 
book and paged through to another section.  "Here," 
he said, pointing to the parchment.  "I was looking 
through this on the bus, and I noticed this-a time slip."

     "What's that?" Robynne said.

     Cat broke in.  Alec was thinking along the same 
lines she was.  "It's where there's a rip in time.  
Normally, time is linear, moving from one second to 
the next.  In a time slip, though, you can jump from 
one point in time, like five a.m., to another, say 
twelve p.m., in the space of a second."

     "Like the book 'A Wrinkle In Time'?" Molly 
asked.  Alec nodded.  "So you think the Cader 
jumped from some time in the past when they weren't 
penned up, and is now feeding over here, in this 
time?"

     "That's probably our best bet," Cat said.  
"Though I wonder, Cader's hardly feed, and there 
have been five kids in less than a month.  So 
there's either more than one Cader, or this slip 
moves to different time periods."

     "Maybe," Robynne began, "maybe the Cader's 
creating the time slip.  Like, when it's time to 
feed the Cader makes the slip and gets its food 
from here.  And maybe it developed a preference 
for sixteen-year-olds, so every time they pick one 
of those," she shrugged, capping off her idea.

     "I suppose it's possible," Cat commented.  
"Cader's are reasonably intelligent.  If one of 
them managed to get their hands on a spell book 
I'm sure they'd be capable of opening a time slip."

     "There's just one problem with that," Alec 
said.  "Brian told me that the last boy the found, 
the one from today was from his class."

     "So either the Cader's getting hungrier or..." 
Robynne trailed off, leaving someone else to finish 
what her brain couldn't.

     Molly suddenly sat up straight.  "Or there's 
another Cader."  Three pairs of eyes looked her way.  
"Okay, look.  Try this scenario.  What if when the 
original Cader who opened the slip was being watched 
by another Cader, and the next time the slip opened 
this other Cader jumped in along for the ride and that 
was the one that took the soul of this last boy."

     Cat looked thoughtful for a second.  "That's 
a good guess, but I'm pretty sure that the same 
Cader's causing the trouble.  Either way you've 
still got to stop it before it eats anymore souls 
from this time."

     Alec leaned forward, removing his arm from 
around Molly's shoulders.  "Hold it.  We have to 
do this as in," his eyes glided around to look 
at Robynne and Molly.

     "As in the three of you," Cat confirmed.  
She smiled reassuringly at them.  "Look, the 
three of you will be powerful enough to defeat 
it," she said, voicing a reassurance for one of 
their biggest fears.  "Your best bet would be to 
disable the Cader, find the spell book which should 
be carried on its body, get the souls back.  There 
is a way to do that, but we've got to do some searching 
for it.  That'll be Molly's department."  Molly nodded, 
knowing the actual physical defeat of the Cader would 
be up to the Dragons, Alec and Robynne, and it would 
be her job, the Witch's job, to cast the spell that 
would retrieve the kids' souls.  "Then you send it 
back through the time slip and that should be it."

     "Gee, it sounds so simple when you put it that 
way," Robynne said sardonically.  "So when do we 
pull this off?" she asked.

     "Tomorrow," Alec suddenly said.  The heads 
swirled to look at him.  "We have to be out there 
early tomorrow morning.  That's when the next 
slip will be."

     "Are you sure?" Cat asked.  She knew each 
Dragon had abilities that were exclusive to them.  
Alec's ability was that he had abnormally strong 
instincts that sometimes turned into predictions 
for peoples' actions and when some things would 
occur.

     He nodded.  "Yeah, tomorrow morning."

     Molly slammed the book shut with finality.  
"Well that settles it then.  Tomorrow we go hunting."

     At that moment Bryn returned with Brian and 
Juliette in tow.  The war conference was over.

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END PART SIX-Battle Plans